Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday February 15, 2005 @02:26PM
from the that's-a-lot-of-night-elves dept.

GamesIndustry.biz has the word that the sales figures on release day for World of Warcraft here in the states have been exceeded by the game's European launch. Slagged servers crumpled and the account creation site on the Blizzard Europe homepage was taken down for a few hours on release day. From the article: "According to figures released by the developer, the subscription-based MMORPG sold more than 280,000 units on day one - more than it sold on its first day in the States - before sales rose to 380,000 by the end of its first weekend on sale."

Not to sound like an economist or, worse, a republican, but the cost of doing business is only one piece of the pie when it comes to charging for what you sell. If they are making the most money possible, then they are charging the correct amount. If they are not, they are not (And the correct amount, if they are not charging it, is something else).

If you don't think it is a fair amount, don't pay it. If enough people agree with you, they'll have to lower (or, strangely, sometimes raise) the price eventually or fold. It's the way the (capitalist) world works.

Saturated? Hmmmph! I'm still stuck playing EQ2 because I can't buy a copy of Wow. I had one literally taken out of my hands by a mom at Target the other day with nothing more than a "if you're not going to buy that, my son wants it for his birthday." I seriously considered summoning a L23 Security Wight. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I knew they're not accepting new subscribers until they get their hardware issues ironed out. Happy birthday, Junior!